


I Could Just Be Someone In a Costume

by BabyPorcupine_CutebutDEADLY



Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: Cause she's just a kid., Get it?, Like literally minor., Minor Original Character(s), Tagging is hard., heh.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-05
Updated: 2019-05-05
Packaged: 2020-02-26 00:26:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18712756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BabyPorcupine_CutebutDEADLY/pseuds/BabyPorcupine_CutebutDEADLY
Summary: "I mean. You look like him," the girl says, like it should be obvious. Which, okay, Danny should have figured that."Well, yeah, but I could just be someone in a costume.""Are you?""Uh. No.""Okay, then."---Danny is recognized by a young fan.Prompt from Phic Phight 2019 in endnotes.





	I Could Just Be Someone In a Costume

"You're Danny Phantom!"

The young voice loud enough to be heard over the din of the other convention goers, but still manages to be hushed with something like awe. Danny turns at the sound of his name to find a kid, probably nine or ten, decked out in some pretty impressive _Doomed_ armor. Her eyes are wide behind her orange visor,  and she seems like she's vibrating with excitement. 

"Uh. Yeah! I am. I'm surprised you recognized the outfit, to be honest," Danny responds. They're a pretty long way from Amity Park, after all.

"But you're not cosplaying, you're  _actually_ him!" 

Oh. Danny blinks, and glances at his friends. The girl... could tell? Sam's eyebrows are significantly higher on her forehead, slightly warping the swamp monster makeup covering her features. Tucker seems just as stunned. While Danny isn't exactly trying to _hide_ the fact the he's Phantom, he assumed that people would just think he's cosplaying. He's walking instead of floating, the characteristic ghostly aura is practically invisible in the bright lights of the convention center, and he has a pretty plain-looking face that isn't _that_ distinguishable. 

"What makes you say that?" Danny asks curiously.

"I mean. You look like him," the girl says, like it should be obvious. Which, okay, Danny should have figured that. 

"Well, yeah, but I could just be someone in a costume."

"Are you?"

"Uh. No."

"Okay, then."

Tucker laughs, his voice slightly muffled through his pirate bandana. "She's got ya there, man." 

It was Tucker's idea to come to the San Diego Comic Fab as Danny Phantom. He found the idea completely and utterly hilarious. Danny guesses it's pretty amusing, but honestly? He just really didn't want to make his own costume like Sam and Tucker did. 

"Could I give you something?" the girl asks, grin back in full force on her face. 

"...Sure?" Danny answers, but she's already shrugging off a lump on her back - oh. He thought that was part of her costume, a fake one of the battery packs from the game that powers the suits. Clever design. She rummages around in the bag for a moment, before pulling out a sketchbook covered in stickers. She flips through it quickly and tears out the page she's looking for.

It's a colored pencil drawing of him. He's sitting on a rooftop of some skyscraper, facing a sunset with a green lump that looks like Cujo curled up against his side. His limbs are oddly proportioned in the image. The windows on the other buildings are crooked rectangles of varying sizes, and his name is scrawled messily along the bottom of the page.

Danny instantly, irrevocably, deems it one of the coolest things anyone's ever given him.  

He thought the town hated him. Sure, there's Sam and Tucker, but they're _obligated_ to like him. People in general seem to think him just as much of a burden and a menace as the ghosts that he's saving them from; he's gotten boos and jeers, tomatoes and angry shouts thrown at him. His parents want to dissect him molecule by molecule, Valerie wants revenge for something that's not his fault, and the GIW probably want to kill him or worse. It feels like no matter what he does for them, Amity Park just wants him gone... but not this girl. 

After a moment of silence, Sam stage-whispers to the child: "I think you broke him." 

"Is that a good thing?" the girl asks nervously.

Danny locks eyes with her and points at the drawing. "This is the best gift I've ever gotten." 

"Really?" she says, sounding surprised. "It's not that great, I just wanted to give you something."

He gives her the most sincere smile he can manage, wishing he could communicate sheer  _asdf_ _da;fjdksla;fj_ -ness of his emotions. "It's absolutely amazing. This means... a lot." 

"Well, you're super cool, and a hero, so. You're welcome." 

They exchange a few more words before the girl skips away. The smile on his face is big enough that it hurts. Someone thinks he's "super cool!!!" And she made a thing! For _him!_ If there's one person that appreciates him, there's gotta be more, right? That has to be true because of statistics or something. There are people out there, people he doesn't know, that aren't afraid of him, and don't hate him.

Realizing that is the best feeling in the world.

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt by DeredereArt (ConfusedAndGhostly) / x / DeredereWrites: Danny wasn’t ever really expecting fans when he became a superhero, but after a civilian gives him a drawing they did of him, he finds out that he’s more of a celebrity than he thought.


End file.
